Les Voix Humaines resurrects the guy who inspired Bach

Francis Ma

Friday

Nov 23, 2007 at 12:01 AMNov 23, 2007 at 8:16 PM

To commemorate the 300th anniversary of Buxtehude’s death, the world-renowned Les Voix Humaines will perform “Membra Jesu Nostri” at the First Church in Cambridge and will feature celebrated singers such as countertenor Matthew White (he sings in a soprano range with use of a falsetto).

Before there was Bach, there was Buxtehude, who was as great as his name is hard to pronounce (it’s books-te-hoo-deh).

Dietrich Buxtehude was a German-Danish organist and an influential composer of the Baroque period. In fact, he was so popular that there is a story about Johann Sebastian Bach hiking 250 miles from central to northern Germany just to hear the man play.

But that was then, and in today’s world saying the name Buxtehude only garners quizzical looks. Instead, time has graced Buxtehude’s students and admirers like Bach and George Frideric Handel with more admiration and recognition. That is finally beginning to change.

To commemorate the 300th anniversary of Buxtehude’s death, the world-renowned Les Voix Humaines will perform “Membra Jesu Nostri” at the First Church in Cambridge and will feature celebrated singers such as countertenor Matthew White (he sings in a soprano range with use of a falsetto).

“With the increasing popularity of Bach, people are getting interested in the kind of culture and context he grew up in,” says White. “Bach’s music is so universally loved and played, that there’s a renewed interest in period performance. People are asking themselves, ‘Where did Bach come from?’ Buxtehude offers a nice window into that.”

So then why has this influential composer been virtually ignored for so many years? Apparently, Buxtehude was a little particular about his instruments.

“He used instruments of the time that, up until recently, no one knew how to play,” explains White. “And these are instruments that make a particular sound, so they can’t be replaced.”

This is where Les Voix Humaines comes in, a group that happens to have the people who can play those instruments.

There’s the gamba, which resembles a cello, and the cornetto, which sounds like a muted trumpet. Both of these instruments will be heard during the performance of “Membra Jesu Nostri,” which White says is Buxtehude’s most popular work.

It’s a religious piece that deals with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. More specifically, it deals with Christ’s wounds.

There are seven cantatas and each focuses on a different part of Christ’s crucified body: feet, knees, hands, side, chest, heart and head.

“It asks the individual believer to scrutinize the physical wound to understand the depth of feeling Christ had for his followers,” explains White. “I personally find it fascinating. It’s a bizarre way to think about the crucifixion and almost fetishes Christ’s wounds. Some of them are really intense.”

For example, in the cantata titled “Ad Manus” (To His Hands), the second soprano sings the following:

Holy hands, I embrace you

And lamentingly, I take pleasure in you,

I give thanks for these severe blows,

For the terrible nails and the holy drops of blood,

I kiss you while weeping

“Now that’s heavy duty,” says White.

Despite its overtly religious undertones, White says the piece is accessible for any classical music fan, with “expressive music set in an interesting set of colors.”

But, and more importantly, the performance will give Buxtehude’s music the long-overdue attention he deserves. For classical music fans, it was worth the wait.